Program

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• Program

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Program

Wednesday, October 21

2:00pm–8:00pm Registration (Lobby)

6:00pm–7:30pm Welcome and Opening Session (North Sun Deck)

                      Keynote address: Timothy Krantz, "A Geographer’s–Eye View of the Salton Sea"

7:30pm–9:00pm Reception and Cocktail Hour (North Sun Deck)

 

Thursday, October 22

7:30am – 7:00pm Registration (Lobby)

8:00am Field Trips Depart (meet in the Lobby)

9:00am–2:00pm APCG Executive Council Lunch (note: location TBA)

6:00pm–9:00pm Poolside Dinner (North Sun Deck)

 

Friday, October 23

7:30am–5:00pm Registration (Lobby)
8:00am–5:00pm Vendors (Lobby)

8:00am–9:40am Paper Sessions A
10:00am–11:40am Paper Sessions B

11:45am–1:00pm Lunch (on your own)

1:00pm–2:40pm Paper Sessions C
3:00pm–4:40pm Paper Sessions D

5:00pm–6:30pm President’s Address (Atrium)
7:30 pm–9:00pm President's Reception and Poster Session (The Retreat)

 

Saturday, October 24

9:00am–12:00pm Registration (Lobby)

9:00am–5:00 pm Vendors (Lobby)

8:00am–9:40am Paper Sessions E
10:00am–11:40am Paper Sessions F

11:30am–1:00pm Lunch (on your own)
11:30am–1:00pm Women’s Network Lunch (The Retreat)

1:00pm–2:40pm Paper Sessions G
3:00pm–4:40pm Paper Sessions H

5:00pm–6:30pm Geography Bowl (room TBD)
5:00pm–6:30pm Business Meeting (room TBD)
7:00pm–10:00pm Awards Banquet (Atrium)

 

Abstracts

Stuart Aitken, , San Diego State University. Young People's Emotional Geographies, Spatial Rights and Mobilities in the Context of Erasure. The case of Slovenia’s erased minority populations is raised as one of the worst human rights abuses in contemporary Europe.  With this paper I discuss the curtailment of minority young people’s spatial rights in the face of the transformation of Slovenia away from state socialism and towards seemingly free and open neoliberal statehood. I highlight the privations and struggles of Izbrisani (‘Erased’) youth from the mid-1990s to the present day around issues of mobility, migration, transnationalism, and citizenship using data from the Ljubljana Peace Institute, and interviews and other data that I collected beginning in 2014 and continuing today.  The paper is contextualized theoretically around issues of spatial rights, new mobilities, and more general emotional geographies of erasure, and some parallels are drawn between the Slovenian context and the contexts of young people elsewhere.

James Allen, , California State University, Northridge; and Eugene Turner, , California State University, Northridge.  The Changing Ethnic Quilt of Southern California. We have updated an online form in our 1997 book, The Ethnic Quilt. The maps show the distribution of 34 ethnic groups in 2010 and changes between 1990 and 2010. In this new publication, available on Professor Turner’s web site, http://www.csun.edu/~hfgeg005/eturner/books.html, there are several summary maps and basic ethnic population tables plus distribution and 1990-2010 change maps for each ethnic group. We envision this online book as a resource for teachers, students, ethnic community leaders, and the public who are interested in ethnic patterns and trends in Southern California, both larger well-publicized groups and smaller ones typically not known at all by outsiders. In addition, the web site contains electronic copies of our earlier books. There are numerous interesting findings, some of which we present in our talk.

Jasmine Arpagian, , San Diego State University. Serving Only Sour Cream: Roma Youth Redressing Social Inequalities. Earlier this year, in Iasi, Romania, unwanted Roma pupils were tossed back and forth between rosters of two schools. Principals preferred “sour cream” or white students instead of Roma. Positive interethnic interactions between Roma and non-Roma youth are limited due to social and spatial segregation, traditional upbringing and lack of communication tools. Lefebvre’s right to the city, Marshall’s three-pronged approach to citizenship and Arendt’s distinction between a subject’s I/me and who/what will serve as this paper’s theoretical underpinning. I will discuss ethnic diversity, discrimination and inequalities experienced by Roma in Iasi and Craiova. The state attempted to rectify these social sufferings, specifically with the Ministry of Education’s 2007 order mandating school desegregation. However, considering this order’s futility and some negative side effects of the state’s affirmative action policies, my central argument is that Romanian Roma youth try to claim the right to their diverse cities through civil and political engagement.

Daniel Arreola, , Arizona State University. The Mexican Restaurant in America, A Prospectus. The Mexican restaurant is a form of ethnic food dining found across the United States in large cities and small towns. It is at once an expression of popular cultural consumption but also a business enterprise historically engaged by families of Mexican ancestry. This project explores how Mexican restaurants came to be part of the American dining experience. The presentation summarizes the restaurant as a form of material culture, a venue of cross-cultural contact, an ethnic enterprise, and a culinary business of surprising regional variation.

Lourdes Johanna Avelar Portillo, , California State Long Beach. In Every Cántaro of Water: Women's Water Access Struggles in Rural El Salvador. Latin America is one of the richest regions in the world in rainfall and freshwater resources.  Despite this, large populations in this region struggle to gain safe access to safe drinking water supply and sanitation services.  The objectives of this research are not simply to show that more wells and better infrastructure are needed.  Instead this study encompasses both the physical and emotional geographies of water to dig deep into the social relations to show whether gender intersects with inequalities in water access, and understand how this relationship may cause water insecurities and water distress.  By examining local water access in rural El Salvador, my analysis concludes that in every cántaro of water are women’s personal water access struggles.  Although some men help with the water collection and carrying labor in rural areas, it is women who as homemakers are more involved and affected by water insecurities.

Amory Ballantine, , The Evergreen State College. Geographies of Race and Nation in the Port of Tacoma Nearshore Tideflats. In this paper, I describe my preliminary investigations into geographies of colonization and resistance in the Port of Tacoma nearshore tideflats. The tideflats, at the mouth of the Puyallup River, are currently both a Superfund site and location of the Northwest Detention Center, an immigration detention facility. The tideflats were historically home to the Puyallup Tribe of Indians. Colonization of the space was facilitated by the Northern Pacific Railroad and attendant industry. These industrial complexes contributed to severe environmental degradation. The Puyallup Tribe reclaimed and forced environmental remediation and restoration efforts in and around the tideflats through successive lawsuits. I apply critical race and queer feminist thought to understand intersecting state-building forces and responses by Native and non-Native colonized peoples along the water and tideflats. My preliminary work leads me to an early conclusion that legal strategies have and can be used by affected communities to resist and transform these impacts.

Sarah Bednarz, , Texas A&M University. Mid and Late Career Faculty. Building healthy and collegial departments can be a challenge. While there has been a fair amount of attention paid to early career faculty, little has been written about the care and nurturing of mid and late career faculty. This workshop explores the issues experienced by this vital demographic and suggests concrete strategies to support faculty after promotion and as they approach the end of their career.

Sarah Bednarz, , Texas A&M University. ‘Powerful Knowledge’ in the Context of AP Human Geography.  ‘Powerful knowledge’ affords its holder with useful and important understandings. According to Michael Young, it provides reliable ways of thinking and enables those who acquire it to see beyond their everyday experience. In this paper, AP Human Geography is assessed against the powerful knowledge model.  In addition, various criticisms of the AP Human Geography course outline and its implementation are addressed.

Jennifer Bjerke, , Cal Poly Pomona University. Perspectives on the 'Reading' of AP Human Geography Exams. AP Human Geography exams include a set of three Free Response Questions that must be read and scored by human geography teachers and professors at a gathering in Cincinnati, Ohio, called the ‘Reading.’ How the Reading operates and its importance to professional development and networking in geography will be the topic of this paper, which will include an example of an FRQ from last year’s exam and how it was scored.

Brittany Bohlinger, , University of Oregon. Politics of Sustainability in Prison: Supporting Inmate Voices through Non-Hierarchical Research Strategies. My research focuses on the rise in prison sustainability programs in the Pacific Northwest. These programs mark a new carceral strategy in the U.S- a strategy of integration versus isolation. These programs teach inmates green job skills and introduce them to the community though firefighting, habitat restoration, and other ecological projects, while making the prison environment ecologically friendlier to local spaces. Some scholars argue that rather than building “green” prisons, the green solution is to begin dismantling prisons that house nonviolent offenders. I will discuss the direction of my research, as well as navigating strategies to do inmate research well, in a way that diminishes my presence and leaves room for their voices to be heard the loudest, and the challenges that I have faced in my attempt to achieve this.

Soheil Boroushaki, , California State University Northridge. Implementing Argumentation Map Concepts Within CartoDB. A Web-based Participatory GIS Decision Analysis integrates two distinct aspects of spatial collaborative decision-making: i) the deliberative dimension, and ii) the analytical dimension of spatial decision-making. This research will focus on the design and implementation of the “deliberative” spect of a Web-based PGIS by adopting Argumentation Maps concept within it. The Argumentation Map concept was proposed to support geographically referenced discussions in GIS. The main aim of this research is to design and implement the Argumentation Map concept within a Web-based Participatory GIS. All elements of Web-based PGIS will be implemented on open-source data and software. The research will use Leaflet Map API and its plugins to add to GIS functionalities. HTML, jQuery and PHP will be used to create a client-server mapping technology. All geospatial data will be stored on CartoDB spatial geodatabase. CartoDB graciously provided free access to their spatial database to faculty members of the Geography Department.

Fernando Bosco, , San Diego State University. Everyday Food Practices of Young People in City Heights, San Diego. With rising health concerns about young people’s diets, we examine the everyday food practices of a group of high school students living in City Heights, a multicultural and lower income community in San Diego. Research in public health tends to focus on nutrition””what young people should and should not eat. We argue that this type of research presents a decontextualized view of young people’s relationships with food, ignoring important emotional and geographical dimensions. We focus on young peoples’ food practices and routines, paying attention to different settings of the food environment: neighborhood, school and home. Our goal is to uncover young people’s personal and emotional engagements with what they eat, how they eat and where they eat. Our data includes GPS-tagged photos, interviews and surveys. We provide a fine-grained description of young people’s food routines that permits a critical evaluation of the different spaces in promoting healthy food practices.

William A. Bowen, , California State University, Northridge. Drought in California and its Solutions.Thirty-five years ago at the annual meetings of the A.P.C.G. held in Reno, Nevada, I had the pleasure of introducing the newly minted California Water Atlas to the Association. Since then, it has been widely lauded as a hallmark work of interpretive cartography and resource analysis. At the time of its creation during the first administration of Governor Jerry Brown, California was experiencing one of its great historical droughts. Thirty-five years have passed. Again, Jerry Brown is the governor, and again the state is besieged by drought. The California Water Atlas still remains as the principal reference for those who seek a broad understanding of water and its many connections to land and life in this state. My comments will focus on salient issues surrounding both droughts and what a critical reading of geography and history suggests might be possible “solutions” to the state’s enduring “water crisis.”

Dylan Brady, , University of Oregon. The Emergence of the Absolute from the Relative. David Harvey writes of the third section of Chapter 1 of Capital that “Marx sometimes puts on an accountant's hat, and the result is a form of exposition that can be tedious in the extreme.” This isn't an uncommon reading of section 3. Yet I argue that the hat Marx puts on is not the accountant's hat but the philosopher's. Marx is engaging in a maneuver that despite its apparent simplicity, is a difficult one for a dialectical and relational thinker: he is attempting to show the process by which absolute concepts arise within a relational reality. By explicating this process, Marx reclaims abstraction from idealism and places it firmly within a materialist approach. This has substantial implications for how Marxist readings address the new materialist turn, and how new materialists approach Marxist theory.

Jonathan Bratt, , Arizona State University. Landscape Ontography in Early Medieval China. This paper discusses landscape literature from China’s Six Dynasties period (220-589) as forms of ontography. Recent work in object-oriented philosophy has developed a concept of ontography as a method of disclosing the diversity and relationality of objects. Ian Bogost describes an ontography as “a record of things juxtaposed to demonstrate their overlap and imply interaction through collocation,” a record that reveals object relationships “without necessarily offering clarification or description of any kind” (2012: 38). Adopting this conceptualization, I explore the ways that early medieval Chinese writers conceived of landscape as a composition of interrelated yet disjunctive objects, and examine the metaphysical roots of these conceptions. I argue that, while certain commonalities underlie early Chinese and contemporary object-oriented thought, the Six Dynasties writers adopt a dualistic approach that qualifies their ontographies in particular ways.

Kiyumi Brocious, , California State University, Northridge.
Whose space? Lessons from the Struggles of New York City Community Gardens and South Central Farm in Los Angeles. This paper examines the contentious processes through which community gardens become the center of struggles to define and remake urban space. Community gardens can provide many benefits to local communities, while abandoned lots and unused public property can be transformed from trash and crime into garden oases. However, these transformations can also raise property values and garner the attention of real estate development. This paper is a comparative analysis of New York City’s community gardeners in the 1990s and Los Angeles’ South Central Farmers in 2006. While New York City was somewhat successful in saving the community gardens, South Central Farm lost its fight. Similarities and differences between the two cases can shed light on the economic aspects of urban development, and political geographies of community activism. This comparative analysis contributes to discussions of how cities might come to see community gardens as permanent resources.

Monika Calef, , Soka University of America. Variability in the Geographic Distribution of Fires in Interior Alaska Considering Cause, Human Proximity, and Level of Suppression. The boreal forest is characterized by frequent extensive wildfires which are expected to increase in size and frequency with climate change. Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and statistics, this presentation evaluates the variability in fire ignitions in Interior Alaska in space and time with particular emphasis on the human influence via ignition and suppression. We found that human ignitions account for 50% of all fire ignitions in Interior Alaska and are clearly influenced by human proximity: human fires mostly occur close to settlements, highways and in intense fire suppression zones where fires also burn much shorter. Fairbanks dominates any regional analysis even though it is clearly different because it is heavily influenced by human activities. This study provides insights into the importance of human behavior as large-scale controls on fires over time as well as the importance of looking closely and not assuming homogeneous regions.

Michelle Calvarese, , California State University, Fresno. The Effect of Gender on Stress Factors: An Exploratory Study Among University Students. This study examines the relationship between gender and reactions to stress among university students.  University students were surveyed on how they typically responded when under perceived stress. There were significant differences between males and females concerning their reactions to stress. Overall, more females experienced higher levels of depression, frustration, and anxiety than their male counterparts when reacting to stress.  However, more males tended to have other psychological reactions not listed in the survey.  In addition, while the stress reaction of anger was barely statistically insignificant, more females also expressed more anger than males as a reaction to stress.

Christine Carolan, , University of Oregon. Lough Neagh: A Contested or Co-operative Space in Post Conflict Northern Ireland? Seventeen years after the signing of the historic Belfast Agreement sectarian geographies persist in Northern Ireland (NI) and the two main ethnic communities remain highly segregated. In urban areas this segregation is visible in the built environment in the form of erroneously named “peace walls”. Research into patterns of segregation in rural areas has revealed that while peace walls are absent, segregated spaces do exist. There are “invisible peace lines” or shared mental maps of “no go” areas that influence behavior and reinforce sectarian divisions (Bell, Jarman, and Harvey, 2010).  Like the peace walls these areas can transform into sites of violence and become contested spaces.  As part of a larger research project, examining the role of natural resources as a peace-making tool in post conflict environments, I have found that that Lough Neagh, the United Kingdom’s largest fresh water lake and the main source of domestic water supply in NI, shares many characteristics of rural contested spaces. But unlike the peace walls in Belfast, this contested space also has the potential to become a site of cross community co-operation.

Norman Carter, , California State University Long Beach. Little Tokyo as a Relic Ethnic Enclave.This paper is a case study of the evolution of ethnic enclaves in Los Angeles. Ethnic enclaves typically begin with the arrival of an immigrant group that settles in a location where costs are low and tolerance for diversity is high. As the population of the group grows business and institutional formation increases resulting in a consolidation of their position. As succeeding generations assimilate into the greater community the enclave begins to decline in population and enters a defensive stage where businesses close and the cultural significance to the group diminishes. Eventually the ethnic enclave becomes a historical memory. An alternative to this stage of decline is evident in Little Tokyo, the Japanese enclave near Downtown Los Angeles. Investment by the city and the local community to attract tourism has resulted in the enclave entering a relic stage where it persists as a place but has very few Japanese residents.

Robert Christopherson, , American River College, Emeritus. Biosphere 2, Earth’s Largest Enclosed Ecosystems Research Facility. Biosphere 2, owned by University of Arizona, is Earth’s largest environmental systems research facility, measuring 3.14 acres, enclosed beneath 6600 windows in a steel space frame. Four biomes function within—rainforest, savanna, ocean and marsh, and desert. The ocean biome is being remodeled as a research analog of the Sea of Cortez. The impacts of climate change are a key priority.  The former agricultural biome houses Earth’s largest Landscape Evolution Observatory (LEO)—three massive lysimeters, measuring 333 m2 apiece, each isolated in temperature and precipitation conditions. Each lysimeter contains 550-tons of meter-deep basaltic Andisols, is thoroughly instrumented, and sits on 10 load cells for accurate weighing. Landscape evolution, soil-moisture relations, and ecological dynamics are tracked, in a unique large-scale, ten-year experiment.   We cover Biosphere 2’s history, including lessons learned during the two-year experiment when eight people lived inside the sealed habitat, 1991–1993. Robert attended the day the eight emerged.

Emanuel Delgado, , San Diego State University. Culture and Gentrification in Barrio Logan. Looking at Barrio Logan, I study the socio-economic impacts of gentrification in this racially segregated neighborhood. Expanding downtown redevelopment into Barrio Logan makes it a prime location to study gentrification. Previous to 1970, freeway construction displaced and divided the Latino and Black neighborhood of Logan Heights. Yet, while this neighborhood was marginalized by various urban planning processes, the people maintained a strong cultural identity. Displacement from gentrification threatens this identity and much more. Much recent gentrification scholarship has displaced critical perspectives by studying the human agency and economic benefits for middle-income gentrifiers. To counter these arguments I critique the ‘creative class’ argument in its necessity to attract creative investors into a disinvested city or neighborhood. Instead of addressing the historical issue of racial and economic segregation, this theory perpetuates it. This mixed methods research explores entanglements and tensions between economic development and cultural disruptions in the barrio.

Lary Dilsaver, , University of South Alabama. Environmental Perception and the Management of Joshua Tree National Park. Americans perceive their environment through a cultural tradition that began in the Middle East but fully developed in northern Europe. Biblical societies shunned arid areas as dangerous and bereft of life. Yet the desert drew prophets and others who sought retreat for meditation or a reclusive lifestyle. Europeans adopted the antipathy toward deserts but forgot its positive side. Euro-Americans faced the arid West with the same negative perception. When the National Park Service came to arid lands to round out its system, many in the agency were unenthused, believing the Joshua Tree desert to be useless except for mining or grazing. Senior NPS officials demeaned or ignored the troubled unit as it fought off miners, the military, movie and cemetery developers and a dump for all of Southern California's trash. However, local park officials and environmentalists, espousing the old virtue of retreating from urban congestion, have helped protect the park.

Joseph Diminutto, , California State University Long Beach. “Cruising” For a Sense of Place in Long Beach, California: The Phenomenology and Spaciality of Romance While Gondola Cruising. In 1982 gondola cruising was transplanted from Venice, Italy to a small community of Long Beach, California known as Naples.  This allowed two distant cities to share a uniquely romantic activity.  Both Naples and Venice have many physical and cultural similarities and variations.  Accordingly, my research examines the phenomenology and spatiality of romance as experienced during American gondola cruising in order to understand how this activity continues to stimulate romantic emotions despite transplantation from its place of origin.  I propose that American gondoliers and gondola embody love and romance by socially constructing, authenticating, and perpetuating a sense of place for all who experience gondola cruising through the canals of Naples and Alamitos Bay in Long Beach, California.

Luke Drake, , California State University, Northridge. Developing a Vacant Land Inventory through Productive Partnerships: A University, NGO, and Municipal Planning Collaboration in Trenton, New Jersey. This paper examines the development and implementation of a participatory GIS method for surveying urban vacant properties. The Rutgers Center for Urban Environmental Sustainability partnered with Isles, Inc., a Trenton-based non-governmental organization (NGO), to create a city-wide database of vacant/abandoned properties and to conduct surveys and focus groups of residents. This research emerged from the NGO’s work to address vacant land and food security in this post-industrial city. Research design was a collaboration between university faculty and NGO staff. Students and community volunteers performed field surveys of 31,161 parcels using a smartphone-based survey technique. Data informed the City of Trenton’s announcement of a five point strategy to address vacant properties. Spatial analysis provided insights into the geography of Trenton’s vacant properties and will serve as a foundation for a variety of NGO programs. Conclusions contribute to discussions on participatory methods, vacant land management and urban greening, and critical cartography.

Ted Eckmann, , University of Portland. Modeling Hydrological Impacts of Future Climate Changes on Local Scales. The global numerical models used to forecast future climate changes produce output much coarser than the scales relevant to most hydrological impacts, such as the spatial scales of individual streams and the temporal scales of spring snowmelt. This study therefore developed new methods for analyzing hydrologically-relevant predictions from climate models at a sub-kilometer spatial resolution, and a sub-monthly temporal resolution, for assessing local-scale impacts. Results show significant and complex variability on fine spatial and temporal scales including, for example, differences between adjacent stream valleys and on the northern versus southern slopes of individual mountain peaks. Variables analyzed include minimum and maximum surface air temperatures, precipitation, runoff, soil moisture, evaporative deficit, and snow depth / liquid water equivalent. Agricultural and municipal water managers should be able to apply these fine-resolution quantitative predictions to better anticipate, prepare for, and even mitigate some of the future climate change impacts on hydrological systems.

Audra El Vilaly, , University of Arizona. Remembering Al-badiyya, Remembering Ourselves: Politics, Subjectivities, and Environmental Memories of the Mauritanian Haratine. In recent years the abolitionist project in Mauritania, led by former slaves known as Haratine, has gained unprecedented momentum and, with it, international recognition. Building upon previous research linking memories of environmental change and Haratine identities (El Vilaly 2010), the current study queries the role of environmental memory in animating the political and social movements of the Haratine. Using oral histories as a primary method, I question the efforts of Haratine activists to neutralize the violence of the state in its many forms. These include efforts to partition nature from culture, dictate social memory, and classify bodies and environments into fixed, legible categories. In so doing, I unveil a key contradiction in the movement's operation: that in straining to resist and even sabotage the state, Haratine activists often end up embodying and even emboldening it. This study aims to clarify the role of environmental memory in constituting the social and political lives of marginalized peoples. In a world of increasing urbanization, technologization, and climate and ecological transformation, environmental memory can help elucidate how disenfranchised groups relate to a state that struggles to withstand this abrupt global change.

Daniel Ervin, , University California Santa Barbara. The Association Between Forest Cover Change and Migration in Mexico from 2000 to 2010. This project explores the relationship between migration, migration-related social processes, and land cover change in Mexico from 2000 to 2010. We use monthly MODIS satellite data from 2000 to 2010 aggregated at the municipio level to conduct a multi-level regression analysis, controlling for a host of ecological, socio-economic, and demographic indicators. Preliminary results indicate a number of statistically significant relationships between forest cover change and migration at the national and regional scales. Results have important implications for research and policy on international migration, conservation, LUCC, development, and capital/labor flows. Collaborators: David López-Carr, Fernando Riosmena, and Sadie J. Ryan.

Maria Fadiman, , Florida Atlantic University; and Grace Gobbo, , Jane Goodall Institute.Can Ethnobotany Foster Environmental and Cultural Understanding? In the village of Bubango, Tanzania we researched the questions: 1) Does creating a booklet help maintain local ethnobotanical knowledge? 2) What plants do people prioritize? 3) What role does language play in plant knowledge transference? 4) What are the most effective ways to include people in this process? We conducted informal and semi-structured interviews with ethnobotanical experts. To reach the younger generation, we held a drawing contest where students chose plants from the list the elders created. We created a tri-lingual book in Kiha, Swahili and English and co-organized a ceremony to present the local knowledge back to the community. The writing in Kiha emerged as one of the major draws. The importance of this work comes from the product and the process: the record of their plant knowledge in an aesthetically alluring format and the local involvement in the creation of their own book.

Brian Garcia, , Yale University, University College London.
Comparative Urbanism, Ethnography and Site Analysis of Pedestrian Friendly Public Transport Neighbourhoods. Public transport systems are expanding all over the world and are promoted for a variety of environmental, social, economic and transport benefits. However, benefits beyond travel are often related to public transport infrastructure tenuously. This paper searches for a correlation between pedestrian friendly zones and transport ridership numbers. Passenger rail station areas were examined in Los Angeles, Berlin, Hong Kong, Medellin and London using a survey based on the classic methods of William H. Whyte and others. Employment centers and transfer stations were confirmed to be the major drivers of ridership as the literature has claimed. However, station areas with a pedestrian friendly urban design and land use had a significant relationship to higher ridership. This preliminary conclusion provides a step in linking a pedestrian environment to ridership and therefore understanding the related environmental and social benefits.

Matthias Gebauer, , University of Mainz. ‘Black Islam’ South Africa? Conversion and Contested Belongings in an Unsettled Society. South Africa's move to Post-apartheid is evaluated in a variety of contributions across different disciplines. Recently, a growing number of scholars started putting emphasis on religion within processes of democratization, transformation and de-racialization in politics, culture and society. Featuring qualitative research on Muslim converts in former “Black African” areas in eThekwini, the paper deals with dynamics of institutionalization, territorialization and the articulation of counter-culture within the field of religious social movements. Building on Paul Gilroy’s concepts of “Black Atlantic” and “diaspora consciousness” allows an analysis along conceptual categories of “Black Muslimness” and “Muslim Blackness”, thus revealing how conversion to Islam is connoted not only with a history of resistance, but also with a move towards an authentic (Black) African identity. Moreover, it pinpoints to specific fields of social and spatial conflict evolving from the Islamic emergence, generating new conflicting areas, leading to a constant contestation of belonging and home-making.

Jay Gilliam, , San Diego State University. Beyond the Edge: Roller Derby and the Spaces of Empowerment Transcending Women's Edgework. Since 2005, the sport of roller derby has seen an exponential and global rise in participation. Coinciding with this rapid expansion, geographies of self-described empowerment have reified in the lives of many of the women who play this full-contact sport. While the accretion of similar, emotionally-defined geographies have been noted by scholars studying women's edgework, that is, rock climbing, skydiving, surfing, and other oft-deemed extreme or high-risk sports, a glaring difference appears to exist in the trans-spatial spread of the athletic empowerment afforded women engaged in the sport of roller derby versus other edgework activities. This paper addresses this glaring discrepancy and attempts to extend the discourse concerning the emotional permeability of edge space boundaries.

Olga Govdyak, , California State University, Northridge. Perceived Effects: Residential Tourism in Belize. Research based on contemporary flows of residential tourism is indicative of an influx in outward migration where American expatriates are increasingly seeking the commodities and amenities offered in otherwise developing nations in their quests for a better way of life. This study examines the perceived effects of residential tourism within Belize through the lens of the expatriate as opposed to the perspective of the local members of the Belizean population. It aims to identify the motives driving the prevalence of expatriate residency in Belize, working to capture the undercurrents driving the expansion of this trend. Pending analysis of interviews conducted at these sites will define whether expatriates perceive and categorize their presence as beneficial for the advancement of receiving communities or in contrast, if they carry an awareness of how their actions (i.e. decisions driving migration, settlement, lifestyle pursuits) perpetuate social inequalities.

Steven Graves, , California State University Northridge. Introduction to Human Geography. The author discusses his new eText, Introduction to Human Geography: A Disciplinary Approach.  The text is different from most of the leading introductory texts in that it focuses on geography as a craft discipline, rather than a series of subjects.  Chapters on Crime and Punishment, and Gender Identity mark the text as an alternative to expensive publisher generated texts as well.

Peggy Hauselt, , California State University, Stanislaus. Estimating Changes in Water Resource Use in California’s Sierra Foothills Due to Agricultural Conversion. Over the past decade there has been acceleration in the conversion from pastures and grasslands to orchards and vineyards in central California’s Sierra foothills: east of the southern Sacramento Valley and northern San Joaquin Valley. The planting on almonds, grapes, and walnuts has led to an intensification of land and water resource use in parts of the region. This study spatially estimates decreases in habitat and increases in water resource use throughout the region.

James Hayes, , University of Nebraska Omaha. A Multi-scale Landscape Analysis of Valley Oak Regeneration Using Morisita's Index. This talk examines variability in the spatial dynamics of valley oak at three sites in the Santa Monica Mountains, in the context of resilience theory and landscape conservation.  The focus is on the utility of the Morisita Index to identify sites experiencing ecological crowding and intensified competition among valley oak stems. Conservation of valley oak ecosystems face challenges due to regeneration failure, climate change, and habitat loss.  Variability in ecological crowding, regeneration success, and stand dynamics is observed among the three sites. Morisita’s Index provides information about the degree of ecological crowding and is sensitive to changes in scale of analysis, making it a valuable tool applicable to studies of other landscapes, sites, and species. The landscape plays an important role influencing stand ecology with landscape development and land cover affecting regeneration conditions within protected areas.

Alison Hotten, , University of Nevada, Reno. Identity and Modernity: The Jewish Contribution to Twentieth-Century Miami Beach Architecture. This paper critically examines the relationship between Jewishness and modernism, using the case study of regional architectural styles in Miami Beach, Florida, during the period of the 1920s through the 1960s. A group of Jewish architects active in Miami Beach during this study period were at the forefront of regional modern design. In what ways did Jewish identity and experience in twentieth-century America shape the work of this group of architects? Recent literature has explored the integral role that Jewish Americans played in the development of American modernism, which may have appealed to Jewish designers because of their identity. Modernism was free of the negative associations Old World forms held for Jews; at the same time, participating in the modern movement was a way to assimilate into mainstream American culture. It is important to explore this, and how their involvement may have shaped and developed American modernism.

Lily House-Peters, , University of Arizona. From Static Landscapes to Variegated Topographies of Resilience: Recognizing the Vertical Dimensions of Riparian Transformations in the Borderlands. Resilience theory, derived from the panarchy model of social-ecological change, disproportionately privileges temporal dynamics, lacking rigorous consideration of space. In particular, resilience scholarship has neglected to examine the intersection among three factors critical to understanding the dynamics of riparian social-ecological transformation: human and natural indicators of resilience; vertical dimensions of territory; and processes of spatial differentiation. This paper has dual goals. First, I attempt to develop a suite of socio-ecological indicators of resilience that recognize the volumetric dimensions of riparian resilience, bringing the subterranean-surface-canopy interface into focus. Second, I introduce a visual cartographic representation of the variegated topographies of riparian resilience in the US-Mexico borderlands. Drawing together diverse spatial data sets and informed by interviews and archival research, my findings demonstrate that resilience landscapes are neither smooth nor 2D, instead, they are 3D variegated topographies. The conclusions animate the implications of this reformulation of resilience for social and environmental justice.

Sara Hughes, , University California Los Angeles. Construction as Commemoration: Memorializing Violence through West Bank Settlement Construction. On 12 June 2014 three Israeli teenagers were kidnapped and killed while hitchhiking home in the West Bank, an incident culminating in a 50 day war in Gaza with over 2,200 casualties—and three new Israeli settlement outposts. This paper explores how Israeli settlers come to terms with violence and tragedy and how they shape settlement landscape. Local discourse accompanying the establishment of these settlements explicitly links violence against Israeli settlers with settlement foundation. Far from being a novel occurrence, the political climate following the murder of an Israeli settler is “right” for the settlement movement to act while the IDF and Israeli government wouldn’t dare oppose them. As attitudes toward violence are closely aligned with cultural values, this paper explores the symbolic and political act of responding to violence against settlers with settlement expansion—the result being the continued ritualization of conflict dynamics and the generation of intractability.

Kristine Hunt, , Idaho State University. “Our Bungalow Dreams”: Housing and Occupation in the US West, 1900–1930. Bungalows developed as a rural, temporary shelter type in India and were transformed into vacation homes for the expanding middle class in Britain in the late 1800s. By 1900 this house type was popular with homeowners over a wide spectrum of income levels across the United States. My research confirms the appeal of bungalows to working- and middle-class residents of small towns and suburbs in the Pacific and Intermountain West. This paper compares the spatial and economic distribution of bungalows in three cities in the early twentieth century, demonstrating how bungalows represent major trends of early twentieth-century housing development in the Western United States, in contrast with prior developments in India and Britain.

Carl Johannessen, , University of Oregon. Human Stewardship of Earth was Studied by Carl Ortwin Sauer and its Influence on Modern Geography. This paper reflects on the enormous importance of the research and teaching methods of Professor Carl O. Sauer on modern geographical studies.  From the time he left the University of Michigan until he died in 1975, Carl Sauer was instrumental in changing the way in which geographers viewed the world, the environment, and man’s relation to both.  In this time, when Sauer's teachings and methods are no longer talked about, we need to insure our students and researchers remember his influence on cultural geography and away from environmental determinism of human activity.  As one of Carl Sauer’s students, I am able to bring some insight into the man behind the legend.

Jim Keese, , Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. Results of the Follow-up Study on Improved Cookstoves in Cuzco, Peru. Approximately three billion people use traditional biomass cookstoves. These stoves contribute to indoor air pollution, notably affecting women and children, and to deforestation and climate change. Improved cookstoves have been offered as a solution, but low rates of adoption are common among stove programs. This paper is a follow-up study of a stove program run by the NGO Proworld Service Corps in Cuzco, Peru. A survey was administered in 43 households in three communities. The results indicate an adoption rate of 70 percent and identify the characteristics of the stoves that contribute to their adoption and sustained use.

Rose Keller, , Portland State University. Consumable Nature, and the Pull of Wilderness in the American West. Natural amenities have long played an important role in changing the geographic distribution of social and economic activity. Though amenity studies broadly indicate the importance of natural and cultural environments in attracting economic growth to rural counties, there has been less attention given to the effects of wilderness itself as a factor for amenity driven growth. This paper revisits an earlier study (Rudzitis and Johansen 1991) to assess the significance of environmental amenities, demographic factors and income disparities in the American West. Drawing on the Federal Wilderness Areas Database and the American Community Survey, we regress the effect of wilderness, landscape fragmentation, GDP/capita, and income differential from 2000-2014 on share of amenity migrants in 2014 using a spatial autoregressive model. Results show the extent of wilderness, road density and GDP/capita remain the strongest pull factors. Wilderness Areas may come under increasing pressure as surrounding natural lands become increasingly built-up.

Dirk Kinsey, , Portland State University. Rebuilding the Village, Chasing the Problem: Youth and Gang Violence Policy and the Suburbanization of Poverty in Multnomah County.  Incidence of youth and gang violence in the Portland, Oregon metro area has increased dramatically over the past few years, resulting in the mobilization of law enforcement, policymaking and outreach efforts aimed at tackling the issue. Largely located outside of gentrified inner city neighborhoods, this violence has become more diffuse and simultaneously localized, mirroring the on-going suburbanization of low-income communities within the region. This research looks specifically at how local agencies charged with addressing youth and gang violence are responding to shifts in the gang landscape.  Drawing on semi-structured interviews with Police, policy makers and gang outreach workers, I investigate both perceptions of gentrification’s impact on gang and youth violence and the spatialities of emerging enforcement and prevention efforts.

Marti Klein, , California State University Fullerton. Hiding in Plain Sight: The Geography of Human Trafficking in Orange County, California. Sex and labor trafficking have always existed, but changes in technology have made it easier for traffickers to attract victims, market their services, and elude law enforcement, broadening the geographic distribution of this crime.  Human trafficking is a global phenomenon, with profits rivaling the drug trade.  A network of international, national, regional, and local organizations are working together to combat human trafficking by reaching out to the public, as well as potential and existing victims.  Government programs such as law enforcement and public transit work collaboratively with public and private sector organizations to help victims escape, and provide them with food and shelter, rehabilitation, counseling, legal assistance, and other services they require.  This paper, based on personal interviews with sex and labor trafficking survivors, law enforcement, bus drivers, and social workers, provides an unusually comprehensive picture of the economic and social geography of sex and labor trafficking in Orange County.

LaDona Knigge, , California State University, Chico; and Victoria Birdseye, , California State University, Chico. Whether City or County: Every child Deserves a Safe Route to School. This presentation details research by students in the Department of Geography & Planning and School of Social Work in Chapmantown, an incorporated island within the City of Chico.  
As the local LAFCO agency, the City of Chico and Butte County debate jurisdiction, students of LaDona Knigge and Vince Ornelas work to collect data that will support an Active Transportation Program Grant to create infrastructure that provides every elementary school child at Chapman Elementary School a safe route to school.  This multiyear, collaborative effort presents ongoing research with the goal of developing an Alternative Transportation Project grant to provide every grade school student at Chapman Elementary School the chance to have a safe biking or walking route to school.  The findings of this service learning project are communicated to the public through a Story Map created by and through Chico State students in GEOG 425 Planning for Sustainable Communities (Fall 2015).

William Koelsch, , Clark University. "The World's Oldest Geographical Riddle".
From classical antiquity to the present, scholars have debated  whether or not Homer's Odyssey contains a geographical substratum of real places in the Mediterranean and, if so, where are these locations? The nearly 2500-year-old debate began with the geographers Eratosthenes and Strabo, was accelerated in the 19th century by advances in archaeology, raised again in sea and air explorations after World War II, and continues to the present. A quick survey leads to a discussion of two recent approaches, one archaeological and the other a new intellectual hypothesis, that may change the terms of the debate. But do they solve "the world's oldest geographical riddle"?  

Joseph Lamon, , Califronia State University Northridge. Los Angeles Graffiti Geographies. Graffiti is a spatial phenomenon that represents a textual, visual and symbolic form of culture having significant  traditions in Los Angeles. As a spatial practice, it can  represent a counter-hegemonic force of spatial transgression and aesthetic resistance expressed in and upon public spaces within the urban built environment.  Graffiti writers must develop specialized geographic knowledge of the city in order to be successful in transcending normative boundaries of the urban form.  In overwriting the pre-existing semiotic arrangement of the landscape, graffiti writers engage public space with considerable agency.  This ability to directly influence the spatial character of the city and predict or model certain social and economic dynamics of geographic locations suggests that graffiti is a phenomenon that can speak volumes as to the workings of the built environment. Incorporating historical geography, ethnographic research and spatial analysis, this study seeks to explore the geographies of graffiti in Los Angeles.

David Lopez-Carr, , University of California, Santa Barbara. Synergies Among the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in sub-Saharan Africa?: Geographies of Demographic, Food, and Livelihood Transitions. This paper addresses recent efforts by a multi-campus UC research team, in collaboration with African colleagues, to address the most basic of human needs, an ethical imperative to the hungry and a cost-effective security investment to the public: food security. The overarching research question is: Can Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) integration achieve food security more efficiently than one-sector interventions? The paper addresses conceptual and analytical approaches towards solving complex global problems involving multiple interacting demographic, economic, and nutrition transitions. Preliminary conceptual work to pilot test the cost-effectiveness of select population, health, and environment (PHE) Sustainable Development Goals' individual and synergistic potential to promote food security is presented from ongoing field sights in sub-Saharan Africa. Preliminary results suggests that conceptual approaches may be refined to take into account rapid, integrated, demographic, health, and economic transitions and how they may interact in sub-Saharan Africa with increasing climate change challenges.

Casey Lynch, , University of Arizona. Pursuing and Contesting Libertarian Development: Social Space and Political Transformation in Post-Coup Honduras. In February 2014 President Hernandez of Honduras announced plans to create the first Zone for Economic Development and Employment (ZEDE) on the country’s southern coast. The ZEDE is imagined as an ultramodern city-state comparable to Hong Kong or Singapore and possessing its own legal, economic, administrative, and political system, led by an appointed board of international economists and free-trade advocates. The project is premised around two simultaneous and interdependent processes: the creation of a radically free-market governing framework, and the development of a new urban space. This paper examines the particular role of land in these interdependent processes and how longstanding struggles over land access are interacting with the ZEDE law in the area slated for development. I highlight the particular relationships among members of peasant groups, faith-based organizations, municipal authorities, investors, national politicians, and others that reshape the dynamic social space through the pursuit and contestation of ZEDE development.

Regan Maas, , California State Univesrity Northridge; Soheil Boroushaki, , California State University Northridge. Daily Activity Spaces: Lived Space and Its Relationship to Health Outcomes in the Northeast SFV. Understanding daily activity space is an important step in the process of understanding how neighborhoods affect our health. This study examines the spatial structures of individuals' daily activity spaces via space-time models, which are more accurate models of lived space when compared to traditional boundaries (census tracts, etc.). Specifically, we designed a smartphone application to collect quantitative data on the geographic neighborhood boundaries of activity spaces, motivations/behaviors related to node preference in the activity space, and the structures of social networks in these spaces. Geographic Information Systems (GIS) analyses were then performed to determine the spatial relationships between these new neighborhood constructions and health-related opportunities and exposures in these spaces. Data were collected over a two week period from individuals living in the San Fernando Valley. Our results describe multifaceted motivations and constraints on activity which vary across demographic groups. Future research will include qualitative interviews designed to provide deeper explanations of differences between groups in terms of behavior, social networks, and health.

Glen MacDonald, , University California Los Angeles; Lauren Brown, , University California Los Angeles; and James Holmquist, , Smithsonian.California Coastal Marshes: Long-term History, Sediment Accretion and C Sequestration Rates and Future Prognosis. California Coastal Marshes: Long-term History, Sediment Accretion, C Sequestration Rates and Future Prognosis.  Some 70 sediment cores from marsh complexes extending from  Tijuana Estuary to  Humboldt Bay  were obtained to determine the long-term stability of the  marshes, net sediment accretion rates, carbon sequestration and potential to adjust to anticipated sea level rise.  Cores extend back to 5536 ± 240 Cal yr BP. However,  macrofossil and sedimentological evidence indicates that current marshes often only date back to  180-600 Cal yr BP.  Net Holocene accretion rates ranged from 1.4-10 mm yr-1 and post 1960 CE rates  from 2.2-5.0 mm yr-1.  C sequestration  ranged from 40 g m-2 yr-1 to 204 g m-2 yr-1.   Some rapidly accreting sites have rates comparable to estimated 21st century sea level rise while many others do not.

Catherine Magee, , University of Nevada Reno. Two Models to Examine the Complex Multi-dimensionality of Cultural Landscapes. This paper introduces and employs the reciprocity of tourism model and the hybrid tourist/cultural heritage landscape first developed as methods to examine complex relationships represented in the Lake Tahoe landscapes.  The reciprocity of tourism model engages the reciprocal relationships between tourism and cultural heritage by examining five factors, representation, identity, production, practice and agency, allowing for the interconnected multi-dimensionality of this relationship to be more fully represented.  The analysis of hybrid tourist/cultural heritage landscapes examines landscape formation through time using two factors, tourism and cultural heritage.  Specifically the paper explores reciprocal effects between tourism and the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California, looking at landscapes of Lake Tahoe that embody and reflect this relationship; each represent Washoe and Euro-American landscape formation processes through time. These two landscape analysis methods are proposed to be useful to examine all cultural landscapes, not only those tied to tourism. 

Eric Magrane, , University of Arizona. Go Deep and Be Ready: Geographies and Poetries of Climate Change. In fall of 2015, I am teaching the first “Climate Change & Poetry” community course for the University of Arizona Poetry Center. The course is designed around the growing body of contemporary poetry that engages with climate change. Through readings and discussion of poetry, course participants learn about environmental poetry as well as gain an increased awareness of the science and social impacts of climate change. Narratives of climate change place it alternately as an environmental justice issue, a national and global security issue, an apocalyptic threat to life on earth, an opportunity for social change, and more. In this presentation, I’ll reflect on the ongoing course and how approaching poems as “boundary objects” that reflect and complicate these differing climate narratives may offer insights for climate communication and for imagining alternative modes of inhabitance in the Anthropocene.

John Menary, , California State University Dominguez Hills. Passionate Encounters with a Bogus Reality: Geo-sexuality’s Place in Higher Education Design and Planning. A fantasy higher education landscape is designed to explore 'place' in higher education design and planning. Called ‘bogus reality’ it functions as a locale for examining urban higher educational problems. The paper demarcates the elements of a higher education problem - modifying male student retention rates. It devises a metaphorical ‘menage a trois’,  relationship model combining knowledge from higher education, the city, sexuality to create an 'assemblage'  illustrating knowledge inseparability. Finally explored is inseparability's role in place - does it help unearth the shared meaning of both proponents and opponents educational planning choices? Both are different on the policy-planning surface but share a similar intellectual rationale. Synthesizing bodies of city knowledge generated is a theoretical structure providing a foundation for future analysis of why ‘place’ could help explain educational problems.

Dianne Meredith, , California State University-Maritime Academy. Tumen River Regionalism: The Costs and Benefits of Transboundary Cooperation. Since the late twentieth century, attempts to cooperate in economic development of the Tumen River Delta in northeast Asia has had many starts and stops.  The Greater Tumen Initiative (GTI) promotes a transnational ideal of cooperation along a shared river boundary which, if successful, might engender a sense of regional identity in Northeast Asia between China, Russia, both Koreas, Mongolia, and Japan. However, the costs and benefits are imagined differently among the potential partners, with China so far providing the most leadership and financial incentives for the plan.  Current projections run the gamut from a tourist zone to more high-flying rhetoric about an “Arctic shipping gateway” originating from the Tumen River Delta. Considering the context of massive political rivalry and unresolved tensions from World War II and the Cold War, will this regionalism ever get off the ground?

Judith Meyer, , Missouri State University. The Changing Role of Yellowstone’s Howard Eaton Trail. This paper illustrates how the changing mission of the National Park Service (NPS) during its first hundred years (1916-2016) is reflected in the location, length, and purpose of Yellowstone’s Howard Eaton Trail (HET). From inception of the HET as a route for saddle horses, through its years as a famous trail for hikers, to its eventual decommissioning, the HET mirrors changing NPS management principles and policies over the past century. Historical photographs, maps, and documents are used to document the evolution of the HET as place and symbol of a national park experience. Historical analysis suggests that national parks like Yellowstone that are large, environmentally-diverse, and popular with a wide range of users can absorb even drastic changes in management goals, especially if these changes are part of broader shifts in societal attitudes toward Nature.

Alec Murphy, , University of Oregon. Putting the Iranian Nuclear Deal in Context: Geographical Considerations. Much of the discussion of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) for dealing with Iran’s nuclear program pays little heed to geographical factors that influenced the nature of the agreement that was reached.  Of particular importance were (1) the Iranian regime’s nationalist underpinnings, (2) the geopolitical context as viewed from Tehran, and (3) the structure of the sanctions regime of the past decade.  Debates over the merits of the JCPOA that ignore these circumstances miss important contextual considerations that merit careful consideration in evaluating the deal itself and in considering alternative arrangements.

Matthew Nordstrom, , California State University, Northridge.
The Growth Effect:  Commuter Rail In Suburban Southern California. The Los Angeles Metropolitan Region once hosted the world’s largest interurban railway system in Henry Huntington’s Pacific Electric Railway (P. E.) during the first half of the 20th century.  By the early 1960’s, this great system diminished and was replaced by the world’s most extensive freeway system which defines the spatial landscape of the Southland today.  In 1992, commuter rail returned to the Southland in the form of the Metrolink Commuter Rail system.  Over the last 20 years this system has expanded greatly in both ridership and route mileage.  This paper explores the role and impact of commuter rail in automobile-rich Southern California.  By using rail passenger historical ridership data, Metrolink ridership data and surveys, corridor development, and property value assessments this thesis explores how the Metrolink system has impacted local geography.   New geographies have emerged and continue to emerge throughout many Southland cities that are served by the Metrolink.

Brian Petersen, , Northern Arizona University. When Species Collide: Changing and Contested Boundaries in Whitebark Pine Forests in the Western United States. Climate change and other factors have led to extensive whitebark pine (WBP) dieback over large areas of its range throughout the western United States. WBP systems reside at high elevation and have important characteristics that make them critically important ecologically. Shifting ecological and philosophical boundaries pose significant challenges for both WBP restoration and landscape level conservation efforts. Ecologically, warmer temperatures have allowed subalpine fir systems to move up in elevation, reducing WBP range and regenerative capacity. Philosophically, WBP restoration potentially requires a new approach to wilderness management. Over 50% of WBP stands reside in federally designated wilderness areas, greatly reducing the suite of options managers can use to address WBP decline. This research provides insights into the conservation challenges land managers and stakeholders face. It also offers an opportunity to reexamine theoretical approaches to boundaries and nature/society relations.

Brian Pompeii, , California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Local Knowledge and Vulnerability to Coastal Hazards on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina, USA. Land and water management practices affect people’s vulnerability to hazards. This article discusses the benefits of a community vulnerability assessment on Ocracoke Island, North Carolina.  It is important to understand the local knowledge of past hurricanes as the history of living with this hazard has been passed down through multiple generations, thus influencing the manner in which people prepare and respond today.  This article addresses the research question: what political and economic arrangements accelerate or decelerate reductions and enhancements in vulnerability? The purpose of this qualitative vulnerability assessment is to identify potential ways to decrease the sensitivity of the community to environmental change. In this community vulnerability profile I identify the degree to which the community’s current methods of living with the risks of environmental change would be altered if risks increased in frequency and/or severity.

Sean Pries, , University California Davis. “Itself a Living Thing:” A Posthumanist, Political Ecology Approach to the Landscape of the North Fork American River. I argue for a conception of landscape embracing the existential phenomenological approach of the humanist project coupled with relational geographies dynamic flow of ever evolving networks as a means of understanding rather than searching for rigid structures. Posthumanism, powered by vitalist materialism that recognizes the agency of the more than human world in shaping the landscapes we inhabit rather than observe, challenges the privileged position of humans as the actors of greatest consequence.  Political ecology demands examination of power relations that create and shape entities, agency and landscapes.  This approach can answer questions such as: How has representation through time shaped behavior in the North Fork?  What are the physical manifestations of a conservation easement document on the landscape?  Does a “No Trespassing” sign have agency?  This paper explores the theoretical foundation of an in-process landscape study centered on the upper 37 +/- miles of the North Fork American River.

Heather Ream, , California State University, Stanislaus. Ethnic Foodways in the Making of Transnationals; Central Valley Sikhs. Central Valley Sikhs are an understudied ethno-religious group. This study explores the “Americanization” process, based on the degree to which cuisine has evolved and consumptive patterns have changed since their arrival in California’s Central Valley. Drawing on insight from cultural geography and anthropology, this research examines ethnic foodways in the making of Sikh transnationals. This article contends that migrants experience a different rate of foodway assimilation based on their age at arrival, their current age, and where they live in relation to ethnic grocers. This article combines a number of sources collected over a three-year period of intensive research, open-ended questionnaires, participant observation, personal interviews, and mapping. Because contact with American cultures has resulted in exposure to new types of foods, understanding which traditional foodways have resisted change will help one understand the process of acculturation. The foods consumed by Central Valley Sikhs constitute fundamental components of their geographical identity.

Craig Revels, , Central Washington University. Visions of Paradise: Place and Promise in Honduras, 1800s-present. As the first place Columbus encountered the New World mainland in 1502, the Honduran port city of Trujillo and its hinterlands have subsequently been the focus of an array of schemes to integrate Honduras into the wider global system. These efforts have included a range of development proposals, political disputes, and attempts to integrate the region into the social and economic framework of Honduras itself. This paper examines the geographical processes shaping this region, from settlement schemes in the early 1800s, through boom and bust economies of mahogany and bananas, to the more recent turn to African oil palm cultivation. Newer efforts to place Honduras within a global context include illusory construction schemes, redoubled tourism development, and a "new Singapore" proposed for the Trujillo hinterlands. Collectively, these efforts have left tangible legacies in the cultural landscape, yet have ultimately proven to be little more than tempting dreams of paradise, deferred.

Sean Robison, , California State University Northridge.  Test of a Habitat Suitability Index Model for Black Bears in Northeastern Minnesota.  Since the 1990’s the Wildlife Research Institute in Ely, MN. has been conducting the most comprehensive study on wild black bears ever in terms of both qualitative and quantitative data. Using over 150,000 GPS points taken from 12 collared female black bears from the years 2010 to 2013, this study tests the strength of a habitat suitability index (HSI) for black bears by first creating individual HSI component rasters and then statistically testing the rasters with the GPS points by employing Ivelv’s electivity index.  The results of this study will enable bear biologists to assess the strengths and weaknesses of their HSI models.

Christine M. Rodrigue, , California State University, Long Beach. Differences in California Sage Scrub Composition behind Stable and Recovering Boundaries with Annual Grassland. California sage scrub (CSS) has experienced drastic loss due to grazing, agricultural, and residential development, often type-converted to exotic-dominated annual grasslands. The loss of critical habitat for several endangered and threatened animal species has inspired conservation and restoration efforts, many of them disappointing.  Using air photographs and remote sensing imagery, CSULB geographers have identified a number of places where CSS is reclaiming grassland, as well as areas where the boundary between CSS and annual grassland has been stable for decades.  Class projects and summer field work have built up transect and quadrat data on conditions along and behind stable and recovering boundaries between CSS and grasslands in the Santa Monica Mountains, Palos Verdes Peninsula, and San Fernando Valley.  This paper will characterize floristic contrasts at and behind stable and recovering boundaries and draw out their implications for active restoration projects.

Jeff Rose, , University of Utah. Wilderness Recreation Users’ Perceptions and Behaviors Concerning Backcountry Drinking Water Quality: Results from the Pacific Crest Trail. Wilderness recreation users are regularly targeted with messaging encouraging the treatment of backcountry drinking water supplies, despite ambiguous empirical support for water resources that are deemed harmful for human consumption. This study surveyed extended backpackers (n = 149) across an 800-mile section of the Pacific Crest Trail in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains to better understand perceptions and behaviors concerning recreational drinking water procurement. Results show that a variety of treatment options are used, and the propensity for water treatment is inversely correlated to self-identified outdoor experience levels. These data suggest that particular ways of framing “nature” have direct impacts on people’s backcountry recreation behavior, especially concerning issues of perceived health and safety, irrespective of empirical, on-the-ground conditions.

Jaime Rossiter, , San Diego State University. Improving Food Security in City Heights, San Diego: The Role of Ethnic Markets. Access to healthy foods has become the focus of policy initiatives aiming at reducing obesity and increasing food security. These efforts address the growing recognition that environmental factors influence food practices and  low-income urban neighborhoods lack large supermarkets, as reflected in the food desert concept. Therefore, residents have limited access to affordable fresh, healthy, and often culturally appropriate foods and are  less likely to adopt healthy diets. A response to this concern has been an attempt to financially incentivize large supermarket chains to return to these neighborhoods. We argue that this emphasis may be misplaced. We investigate how ethnic markets in City Heights, a low-income and racially diverse neighborhood in San Diego, provide access to affordable, culturally appropriate, and fresh foods. Policies and initiative that support ethnic markets may be a more favorable solution that increases food availability, promotes culturally appropriate foods, and bolsters local small business.

Katherine G. Sammler, , The University of Arizona. From the Ocean’s Abyss to the Vacuum of Space: Privatization in the Vertical Commons. In reaction to recent academic calls for scholars to engage with verticality, volumes, and three spatial dimensions of territory, this paper critically analyzes political, legal and practical engagement with water, air and outer space. From the arcane depths of the seabed to celestial bodies in the sky, each of these expanses differs from most land-based materialities “difficulties of occupying, delimiting, or securing vast unruly volumes” manifesting in distinct strategies of asserting sovereignty within devised jurisdictional zones. Such expanses, commonly considered “frontiers”, are also regarded as geocommons. They share many aspects of their social and legal constructions based on international treaties, utilizing a “common heritage” designation to integrate these spaces into a framework alongside normalized nation-states. Nonetheless, national and private entities are asserting themselves beyond treaty parameters. This paper investigates recent sovereignty and resource claims on seafloors, airspaces, and outer spaces as well as the blurred boundaries of each.

William Selby, , Santa Monica College. Evolving Food Landscapes in the Los Angeles Area. The Los Angeles area has grown to display the most diverse cultural landscapes of any metropolitan area in the country. This gathering of cultures from around the world has created a rich laboratory where food fusion experiments are quickly transforming food landscapes and diets across Southern California and the results are rippling around the world. Competition to find the space and resources to grow and transport local foods, to offer a wide variety of traditional and nutritious foods, and to market these foods to larger populations is evident in almost every neighborhood. These trends and landscapes call out for our attention and offer valuable learning opportunities about our cultures and urban environments.

Noah Silber-Coats, , University of Arizona. Private Hydropower and the Politics of Nature in the Sierra Madre Oriental. This paper examines the politics surrounding a boom in hydropower in the Mexican state of Veracruz. Focusing on one river basin, I situate this surge of investment within the changing drivers of hydropower development, including Mexican policy and institutional reforms intended to court private investment in energy infrastructure. This shift toward private development has been coupled with a move to encourage smaller-scale projects. While hydroelectricity in general has been re-framed as clean energy, this move has been particularly pronounced in the case of small hydro. Nonetheless, by following conflicts surrounding issues of streamflow and conservation that are linked to these projects, I show how deeply contested the impacts of this technology can be. This case open up a number of questions about the governance of hydroelectric development, not only in the Mexican context but in numerous other settings where small/private hydropower is taking off.

Jody Smothers-Marcello, , Sitka HIgh School. Active Learning in the Human Geography Classroom. College Board’s AP Human Geography course is presented in seven units of instruction in population, cultural, political, and economic geography. Content is specified for each unit, but best practices in teaching that content point teacher to active learning models.  This presentation will showcase one active learning module that can be used in any Human Geography classroom, whether it is at the high school or college level.

Zachary Sugg, , University of Arizona. Availability, Allocation, Access: Groundwater Politics and Regulation in Central Texas. In a famous 1904 groundwater rights case the Texas Supreme Court characterized groundwater as “so secret, occult, and concealed” that the uncertainty would make regulation of its use “practically impossible.” In conjunction with episodic droughts and advancing hydrogeologic knowledge, the state later found reason to create modest groundwater pumping regulations. But while hydrogeology has come a long way in the last century, determining who has control and access to “surplus” groundwater resources is still not immune to contestations over quantifications of subterranean volumes and flows. This paper uses a recent case of a particularly contentious groundwater permit application in Central Texas to explore how, in the words of Bridge (2013), “environmental politics increasingly centers on the calculative and technical-legal practices for inventorying, securing and anticipating volumes in space.”

Jonathan Taylor, , California State University, Fullerton. Is DMT Everywhere? Some Notes on the Diffusion of N,N-Dimethyltryptamine. DMT is a component of psychoactive preparations employed historically for shamanic, spiritual, and medicinal purposes by numerous indigenous populations within the Americas. It is also a controlled substance in most countries, banned as a “drug of abuse”.  With its popularity on the rise in recent years, in this paper we examine how DMT moved out of the jungles of the Amazon to become increasingly well known in the West. DMT has undergone a variety of processes that have furthered its geographical diffusion, including synthesis and scientific research; its importance to the ayahuasca religions founded in Brazil; and its increasing popularization in contemporary culture through a variety of artistic mediums and movements.

Deborah Thien, , Cal State, Long Beach. Being in Common(s): Making Space for Civic Awareness in a University Honors Program. This paper reports on an in-progress civic awareness series developed for 1^st year honors students residing in a living-learning community at a large urban institution. 52 residential honors students are participating in a student leader-facilitated process comprising two seminars with program staff, a student-led, small-group fieldtrip to sites on the LA River, and social media activities, with an aim to encouraging urban exploration, imagination, collaboration, diversity, and civic engagement. With such lofty aims, what could go wrong?

Zackery Thill, , University of Oregon. Silencing Controversy? Environmental Knowledge Production on the Oilsands of Northern Alberta. Bitumen production from the oilsands has triggered conflicts and mistrust between First Nation communities and the Alberta government. Concern for traditional livelihood and contamination of water and environment has instigated lawsuits and fomented mistrust, and much of the conflict has centered on the accuracy of the science used to green-light oilsands projects.  Working at the nexus of political ecology and science studies, this paper uses co-production to investigate prospects to assuage environmental conflict through new, participatory monitoring programs. I begin by providing an historical and political context to the creation of Alberta Environmental Monitoring Evaluation and Reporting Agency (AEMERA), which is charged with providing objective scientific knowledge on oilsands development to the public and policymakers while, at the same time, including First Nations in pollution monitoring.  I conclude by discussing the lingering, yet renegotiated, power-relations between First Nation communities and monitoring agencies.

Rachel Vann-Foster, , California State University Long Beach. Native California Grasslands: La Jolla Valley, Malibu Species Change and Recovery Rates Over Time. La Jolla Valley Preserve in the Santa Monica Mountains near Malibu, California is home to one of the most important remaining examples of native California grassland (Goode 1981). This study evaluates the distribution of native grasses in the context of John Keeley’s (2005) four hypotheses. I seek to answer the following research questions: how do land use and disturbance histories affect grassland? What impacts does species competition have on native valley grasses? Does the recent twenty-year fire interval impact grassland distribution? Finally, do environmental filters, such as microclimate and soil composition, impact grassland distribution? I argue that introduced Mediterranean grasses have had negative impacts on recovery rates of the threatened native valley grasslands, supporting Keeley’s self-regulatory hypothesis. My preliminary results support this argument.

Suzanne Walther, , University of San Diego. Quantifying Geomorphic Change over a Flood Season on Pleasant Creek in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah. The North American monsoon often appears in the form of flash floods in the southern Utah, which influences annual sediment budgets and geomorphic change along streams. During the 2014-2015 season, we captured fluvial geomorphic change along a ~500 m reach of Pleasant Creek (PC) in Capitol Reef National Park (38.18025°, -111.18064°). The goal of this investigation is to quantify the pattern and volume of geomorphic change along the creek using RTK-GPS and Structure from Motion surveys and Geomorphic Change Detection software. Between September 2014 and April 2015 flooding resulted in change across over half of the study area. The majority of the reach experienced aggradation, up to 40 cm thick on the floodplain. This suggests that, during flooding, sediment stored upstream is mobilized and then deposited within this reach where channel slope decreases. This short-term data contrasts with long term trends of river incision due to regional uplift.

Josh Watkins, , University of California, Davis. Constructing ‘Potential Irregular Immigrants': The Biopolitics of Australia’s Overseas Public Information Campaigns. This paper analyzes the Australian state’s biopolitical governance of ‘Potential Irregular Immigrants’ as targets of overseas public information campaigns to deter irregular migration.  Australia’s overseas public information campaigns consist of transnationally administered advertisements in source and transit countries; border externalizations securing against potential asylum seeker boat arrivals through disseminating ‘scary’ images and texts negatively portraying seeking asylum by boat. Australia has implemented campaigns in 19 Asia-Pacific countries. This paper argues these campaigns are technologies of extraterritorial government identifying and governing distinct populations of life from geographic, sociological, and psychological criteria established through privatized research programs in source and transit countries. The characteristics and content of Australia’s campaigns are analyzed, demonstrating Australia’s embrace of neoliberal governmentality in designing, implementing, and evaluating campaigns. Australia’s campaigns will be shown to be neoliberal performances enabling sovereignty regimes where private firms become part of the Australian state extraterritorially governing non-citizens beyond Australia’s sovereign borders.

Lydia Wood, , San Diego State University. Colonized Geographies, Border Politics, and Youth: Understanding the Geographies of Indigenous Youth Health and Well-Being in San Diego. San Diego and Northern Mexico, the ancestral territory of the Kumeyaay people is home to a diverse Native American urban community and twenty-three reservations. Centuries of colonialism has not only diminished Native American communities, connections and access to ancestral territory, but has also led to a range of well-being and health struggles, from diabetes and poverty, to poor mental health associated with historical and intergenerational trauma. In this presentation I discuss the methodology and initial findings from my ongoing research that examines the social, historical, and geographic factors that shape indigenous youth health and well-being in San Diego and how these factors are understood by indigenous youth. This project seeks to gain insight into how “good” and “poor” health and well-being is constructed by indigenous youth. In particular, I discuss the complex political and emotional geographies youth draw from when navigating and expressing their experience of health.

Wei Yang, , University of Southern California. Effect of Climate and Seasonality on Depressed Mood Among Twitter Users. Location-based social media provide an enormous stream of data about humans’ life and behavior. With geospatial methods, those data can offer rich insights into public health. In this research, we study the effect of climate and seasonality on the prevalence of depression in Twitter users in the U.S. Text mining and geospatial methods are used to detect tweets related to depression and their spatiotemporal patterns. Our results show that the relationship between depression, climate and seasonality is geographically localized. A two-direction stepwise regression is then conducted in each climate zone. We find that relative humidity, temperature, sea level pressure, precipitation, snowfall, weed speed, global solar radiation, and length of day all contribute to the geographic variations of depression rate. We also propose a three-stage framework that semi-automatically detects and analyzes geographically distributed health issues using location-based social media data.

Terry Young, , Cal Poly-Pomona. Christian Nationalism and the Antimodern Origins of the Pacific Crest Trail. After six decades of efforts, the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) was officially completed in 1993.  Generally running through wilderness areas and stretching from border to border, it is annually enjoyed by thousands of hikers, horse riders and backpackers.  Recent histories about the twentieth-century development of its principal eastern counterpart, the Appalachian Trail, and the wilderness movement focus on the antimodern and progressive politics that helped guide those efforts.  The Wilderness Society, the Sierra Club, Bob Marshall, Benton MacKaye, David Brower and others are rightfully recognized as central to the story.  However, the wilderness and long-distance trail movements had their more reactionary advocates too.  The PCT began as an antimodern response to a rapidly modernizing Los Angeles County and was spearheaded by individuals and organizations that were conservative and nationalistic.  This presentation explores the motivations and arguments for a PCT during the 1930s and 1940s.

Yolonda Youngs, , Idaho State University. Tracing Lives, Following River Channels: Commercial Raft Guides in Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming. Grand Teton National Park (NP) offers visitors the dramatic Teton mountain range, alpine lakes, miles of trails, and the opportunity to take a scenic float trip on one of America’s great waterways, the Snake River. The park was established in 1929 but its boundaries expanded in 1950 despite a national controversy and strong local objection from the residents of nearby Jackson, Wyoming.  Some residents, however, saw the expansion as an opportunity to capture a slice of the recreation boom in the United States after World War II. This paper explores part of that history through an in-depth look at pioneering commercial river rafters on the Snake River through Grand Teton NP. Their life stories reveal deep place attachment and the roots of a burgeoning commercial river guide industry in the mid-century American West.

Sahar Zavareh, , Oregon State Univeristy. Detroit Water Crisis News Media Discourse Analysis. In Detroit, thousands of the city’s poorest residents were subjected to water shut-offs while battling against poverty, access to affordable housing, and other socio-economic problems. This crisis illustrates how a major US city dealt with its water resources and financial resources. This research examined media reporting of the coinciding regulation of Detroit’s water shut-offs in 2014, utilizing discourse analysis to identify what the media said at different news reporting scales: local, national and international by asking the research question: What does the news story actually say at the local, national and international scale of the Detroit water crisis? Results of the analysis framed the crisis as a basic human right, as a statement on the complexities of the financial makeup and difficulties of residents’ livelihoods, and as a judgment on the obligations and responsibilities. How these news stories were framed demonstrates how media shapes the way we understand stories.

Don Zeigler, , Old Dominion University. Unrolling the Map of AP Human Geography. College Board’s AP Human Geography course was developed in the 1990s, began in 2000, has grown to become one of College Board's top ten AP exams as of 2015, and has emerged as one of the metatrends in our discipline’s 21st century history.   A spatial and temporal analysis of data from 15 years of testing APHG students will be presented, along with information that college instructors and department chairs should know about the course and how it affects their ability to recruit (1) geography majors and (2) high school teachers as graduate students.

POSTERS

Gregory Beringer, , California State University, Fullerton. Rent Burden and the Role of Non-Profits in Affordable Housing: An Analysis of Orange County, CA. Within modern urban context, shelter is acquired through owning or renting. A household is considered under rent burden when thirty percent or more of the total household income goes to rent. After the recession of 2008 and the collapse of the housing market, instances of rent burden have reached over 50% at a national level and over 55% in California. To combat instances of high rent burden, affordable housing projects backed by government and those provided by non-profits have been implemented to help reduce the pressure rent has on low-income individuals. Using data taken from the 2013 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, this study uses GIS to analyze rent burden levels within Orange County, California. Results indicate the extent and intensity of rent burden, as well as the spatial distribution of affordable housing by non-profits and act as a starting point for further research and discussion.

Gregory Bohr, , California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. Precipitation Timing and Intensity in the Western United States. Trends and variability in seasonal and annual precipitation totals are frequently observed measures in long-term climate change studies. However, a wide range of other observable precipitation characteristics have substantial effects on ecological processes, agriculture, and surface hydrology. This project uses daily precipitation data from the US Historical Climatology Network to examine multiple precipitation variables in seven states (AZ, CA, ID, NV, OR, UT, WA) of the western U.S. over the past half-century. Specific topics include: frequency of extreme precipitation events, the proportion of seasonal rainfall contributed by extremes, the timing of the wet season (onset, midpoint, end), and the duration of dry spells/seasons. Interannual variability contributed by large-scale circulation features (ENSO, PDO) is also addressed.

Pedro Chacon, , California State University Fullerton. Analysis of Chemical Labs in California using Spatial Statistics Methods. Using data from the DEA’s El Paso Intelligence Center I mapped out all the chemical related incidents in the state of California from 2001 and 2011 (only data available at the time). In the process I used ArcGIS to do a spatial statistical analysis on the locations of the labs using Inverse Distance Weighted Interpolation and Hot spot analysis to better understand the problem. I also used average income of each area that was provide to me by the 2010 census to further my understanding of the issue.

Cora H. Chong, corachon@usc.edu; Julia L. Goldsworth, jgoldswo@usc.edu; Robert L. Grotefend, rgrotefe@usc.edu; Kevin W. Klemens, kklemens@usc.edu; Jason I. Martin, jimartin@usc.edu; Dustin L. Sunderman, sunderma@usc.edu, University of Southern California. Dredging the Detroit River: A Geodatabase Prototype for Great Lakes Dredging Activity. This project provides a framework for creating and implementing a geodatabase of dredging activity in the Great Lakes region based on the Great Lakes Aquatic Habitat Framework (GLAHF). Though dredging data is freely available in PDF format, no geodatabase of dredging activity in the Great Lakes is currently available to the public. Utilizing data from the GLAHF and the US Army Corps of Engineers, this geodatabase combines multinational (US and Canada) and hydrological data to visualize dredging activity in the Detroit River.  It is meant to assist in studying the relationship between aquatic habitat disturbances and dredging activity in hopes to minimize adverse impacts and maintain records of all work done within the Lakes. Relationships between dredged segments, Confined Disposal Facilities (CDF), geopolitical boundaries, and dredging contracts have been created to facilitate accountability of individual contracts.

Gail Ferrell, , Truckee Meadows Community College. Winter Travel Management on Six Forests Including the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. A fundamental change in travel management planning for winter recreation is now taking place on our national forest units. This change is the result of two lawsuits brought against the United States Forest Service that required analysis of impacts by snowmobile use on forest service lands including social and environmental impacts. The process is referred to as Winter Travel Management and is taking place on the Tahoe, Stanislaus, Eldorado, Plumas, Lassen and the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit of the USFS. The Winter Travel Management process is an involved, lengthy process involving the many stakeholders of winter recreation on public lands. At the conclusion of the multi-year planning process, a set of guidelines, rules and restrictions will be in effect for 20 years on that guide winter recreation on each of the respective forests. Note: Dr. Gail Ferrell is on the Board of Directors of Snowlands Network.ß

Brett Goforth, , California State University, San Bernardino. Vegetation Type Conversion and Hill-slope Failure Susceptibility in a California Shrubland. Geographical information system (GIS) analyses of hill-slope failures (landslides, slumps, debris flows) are presented for a 3,220 ha study area of shrublands in the San Bernardino Mountains, southern California.  The study objective was to evaluate how spatial patterns of hill-slope failure relate to distributions of invasive non-native annual plants in post-fire succession of chaparral and coastal sage scrub (burned 2003).  A severe storm from December 16-23, 2010, produced > 50 cm of rainfall that triggered hill-slope failures recorded as erosion scars on repeat aerial orthophotographic imagery. Georeferenced images before (15 Nov. 2009) and afterward (9 Mar. 2011) were compared to map 8,101 polygons of erosion scars. Perimeter data are summarized by factors of vegetation, substrates, and terrain characteristics represented by digital elevation model (steepness, aspect, and elevation). Results are compared to botanical surveys and historical data that indicate hill-slope failure significantly increased where shrubland had converted to non-native annual grassland.

Jaime Hoffman, , California State University, Northridge.
Solar Energy Potential at California State University, Northridge. In an effort to promote sustainability through the production of renewable energy, and to reduce the campus’ energy costs, CSUN has installed two solar panel arrays in campus parking lots. Together they produce nearly 900,000 kWh annually, saving roughly $130,000 in utility costs each year. These two systems occupy small portions of two different lots, however much more parking space is available for solar development. This study used the solar radiation tools available in ArcGIS along with a digital surface model and other campus infrastructure data to quantify the potential for solar energy production on the CSUN campus. It was estimated that total production could exceed 31 million kWh/year, saving over $6.5 million in energy costs while also providing the basis for a green campus infrastructure that would set a positive example for other colleges and universities to follow.

Rajrani Kalra, rkalra@csusb.edu , California State University, San Bernardino. Spatial Analysis of Languages and Literacy Patterns in India. India is a land characterized by ‘unity in diversity’ amidst a multicultural society. This is represented by variety in culture such as different languages religions, castes, house types, dance forms and dietary patterns (Noble and Dutt, 1982; Kalra, 2014). Of these cultural traits language is an important instrument of cultural identity since it is through this medium that different groups of people identify and communicate with one another and the world and express a sense of identity to a place. Often social tensions emerge when a certain segment of society feels ostracized from social and economic processes of development due to lack of knowledge of the dominant and prevalent language. Also, it is argued that the most linguistically diverse states in India are more literate and highly educated and have a positive sex ratio. Given this background this research addresses the following three research questions: (1) What is the extent of linguistic diversity in India during 1971-2001 decades? (2) What factors explain the geographical patterns in linguistic diversity in India?  (3) Are linguistic diversity and literacy patterns symbiotically related? This study will use spatial analytic techniques such as Index of diversity, correlation and GIS analysis. The data on language and literacy from Census of India will be utilized for analysis.

Connor Martin, , University of North Alabama. A Vehicle for Development: Historic Streetcar Systems and Economic Growth. Many small cities and towns in the United States are attempting to develop downtown areas in order to attract more business and thereby stimulate economic growth. Restoring historic transportation systems, such as streetcars (also known as trolleys), are one path towards this goal. This project investigated the economic, cultural, and transportation impacts that restoring or installing streetcar systems has had on selected communities in the United States. The project then used the city of Florence, Alabama, as a case study, exploring the factors that could positively contribute to the economic growth and cultural enhancement of the city, as well as enhancing transportation patterns and traffic flows while linking parts of the city together in a closer way. Initial conclusions suggest that developing a short, historically-based, streetcar line in Florence would bring many advantages to the city’s downtown area.

Alison McNally, ,Jennifer Helzer, , andPhilip Garone, , California State University, Stanislaus, William Swagerty, , and Reuben Smith, , University of the Pacific, Gregg Camfield, , University of California, Merced.  The Delta as a Cultural and Historical District. This cartographic representation of the Delta reflects the focal area of the Delta Narratives project, an interdisciplinary effort investigating the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta as a place rich with environmental and human history.  As a region, the Delta has been continuously sculpted, shaped, and settled by humans for over 10,000 years.  The Delta Narratives project strives to interrelate the stories that document the Delta experience, and aims to relate these stories to themes in regional and American history, including transportation and communication, reclamation and restoration, the impact of ethnicity and labor specialization on community building, and the changing perspectives of writers and visual artists.  Using both existing and newly digitized geospatial data, this map was critical for depicting the intersection of natural and human made landscapes in the Delta, and served as an important graphic tool for communicating and visualizing the dynamic history of this region.

Madison Most, , California State University Northridge. The Hop Head Republic. The craft beer scene has exploded throughout the United States within the past few decades, with the West Coast arguably dominating this recent surge.  Soon to be almost as ubiquitous as wineries in California, microbreweries, or small-batch breweries focused on quality and experimentation in favor of mass-production, are cropping up all over the state.  As of early 2015, there were over 400 such breweries in California, whereas three decades ago there were less than 90 in the entire country.  Certain parts of the state are beginning to carve names for themselves as beer meccas, with new breweries opening almost every year.  This map explores the California craft beer culture, examining the distribution of microbreweries within the state and highlighting microbrewery hotspots.

Jeffrey Nelson, , Cal Poly Pomona; and Andrea Hernandez, , Cal Poly Pomona.Park Environments in Pomona, California: A GIS Analysis and Field Assessment. Parks have been used to better society since their inception. The municipal parks of Pomona were created with the same fundamental theory behind them. This theory can be greatly influenced by the environmental quality of the parks. In Pomona, many factors influence the use of the parks and they work together to create a classifiable set of environments. Using GIS and site visits, our analysis classifies Pomona’s parks as low, moderate or high-quality environments based on situational factors and field visits. From this information, we conclude that the city’s parks are of moderate environmental quality at best, but have room for improvement through both aesthetics and community involvement at the site level and in the situation surrounding the park. Continued research is required in the area of spatial socioeconomics as well as factors of overall community improvement.

Jonghyun Park, , Hosei Univerisity, and Fujimura M, , IGGR.  International Urban System and Relationship Between Busan and Fukuoka in Terms of International Trade Activities of Firms in Busan. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the inter-urban linkage between the non-capital cities in Korea and Japan, focusing on the relationships between Fukuoka and Busan. I attempt to subdivide international trade activities of firms into 3 aspects and analyze foreign destinations based on cities. The data is tabulated from the questionnaire, relying on the directory of 62 different types of exporters in Busan. The linkage between Busan and Fukuoka mainly sits at the apex of the international urban system, from the perspective of the gateway of “Physical Distribution” and “Business Trip”; however, links to Tokyo and Osaka mostly act as “Transaction” and functional cores such as sales channels. Fukuoka Airport has a promising evaluation concerning accessibility and convenience. Shimonoseki port has certain advantages due to the short time required for customs formalities, brevity of the shipping time and convenient daily shipping schedules.

Zia Salim, , California State University, Fullerton. Assessing the Accuracy of Volunteered Geographic Information: A Case Study in Urban Geography. The explosion of the geoweb opens a myriad of new research directions, including work on the applications of Volunteered Geographic Information (VGI). Despite the proliferation of VGI, questions of quality and accuracy still remain to be studied. This poster assesses the feasibility of using VGI in an urban geography study, by analyzing the accuracy of VGI data in identifying elements of urban structure. In this case study, I examine gated compounds for foreign professional workers in the Arabian/Persian Gulf. While these are understood to be a widespread form of housing, little research has examined their prevalence and spatial distribution. I assess the accuracy of points of interest related to these gated compounds, as created by contributors to open mapping websites. The results indicate that, within this context, VGI has a high level of spatial accuracy. This research concludes that VGI has potential as a data source in urban geography research.

Marcus Thomson, , Glen MacDonald, and Elizabeth Fard University California Los Angeles. Comparing a Statistically Downscaled Climate Model and Multiproxy Lake Sediment Data to Reconstruct 1000 Years of Utah Climate History. We present preliminary results of a comparison of a high-resolution lake sediment charcoal record from a high plateau lake in central Utah to a statistically downscaled climatology of a model from the NCAR Last Millennium Ensemble (LME)